Let me evaluate the Capstone Course - it is poorly designed, dated, and the organizers make the participants feel like an after thought. Now I sound like one of those angry online people. On to something more exciting.
One of the tools my school division is in the process of gearing up is Microsoft Sharepoint. I am really excited about teachers using this tool as a collaborative communication medium. The tool comes equipped with capability to use discussion boards, blogs, wikis, document sharing, photo sharing, calendar sharing, annoucment sharing, and surveys. I think these tools have the ability to drastically reshape my division's educational enviornment. Many teachers don't do a good job of working on lessons collaboratively and sharing styles of teaching that are effective with various types of students. If the division can get teachers to utilize the Sharepoint site as a collaborative learning environment, I think a shift will occur in the standard of teaching in my division. If teachers had a repository of tried and true lessons on which they could continue to build and expand, I think we would finally start to see more consistent learning among students. The idea that you can go into your classroom, shut the door, and teach on your own for the whole day needs to stop. If teachers can work together collaboriatively the profession of teaching would drastically improve its product.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Session 4 Creativity part 2
This post is going to be specific to e-learning 2.0 - how Web technologies are shaping education an article written by Steve O'Hear. When I read through this article the first time, I got excited about all the different ways that technology can create really awesome learning environments. Then I thought about the schools I work in and wonder how to translate these ideas into things that these teachers will use. I see a big disconnect between technology and the classroom. My job is to bridge that divide, but I am still struggling on how to do that.
The first step, which is outside of my control, is getting the resources into the hands of teachers. So far my division has been doing a pretty good job of getting tools for teachers. The second step is getting teachers comfortable using the tools. I see blogging as a good first step here. Particularly with the Elementary students, a multi-authored blog around some of their reading in language arts would be a good digital step for teachers and students. I was really impressed with the one teacher who managed to get the author to join the learning environment. That is where I see real power in these tools. The third step, is to truly incorporate these tools. I was really impressed with the flickr annotation tool. That has great applicability in the classroom. Also, the ability to create podcasts of information which can then be shared with others increases the learning opportunities even further.
Refelecting more on the barriers to these projects, I really see a need to encourage teamwork and cooperation in the classroom. These are the kinds of projects that need teachers working together. Yet all to often I still see teachers on their own, shutting the door to their classroom when they teach. Administrators need to find a way to encourage more teamwork.
The first step, which is outside of my control, is getting the resources into the hands of teachers. So far my division has been doing a pretty good job of getting tools for teachers. The second step is getting teachers comfortable using the tools. I see blogging as a good first step here. Particularly with the Elementary students, a multi-authored blog around some of their reading in language arts would be a good digital step for teachers and students. I was really impressed with the one teacher who managed to get the author to join the learning environment. That is where I see real power in these tools. The third step, is to truly incorporate these tools. I was really impressed with the flickr annotation tool. That has great applicability in the classroom. Also, the ability to create podcasts of information which can then be shared with others increases the learning opportunities even further.
Refelecting more on the barriers to these projects, I really see a need to encourage teamwork and cooperation in the classroom. These are the kinds of projects that need teachers working together. Yet all to often I still see teachers on their own, shutting the door to their classroom when they teach. Administrators need to find a way to encourage more teamwork.
Session 4: Creativity
Creativity seems to be all the rage in education these days. This summer Newsweek had a whole magazine dedicated to the issue. Yet, I wonder how much of this focus is coming about as a counter balance to the government mandated standards that are in place? It is hard to encourage creativity when students have a set of facts they are required to memorize.
For this course, I was asked to take a look at Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity. Intermixed in this comedy routine were a few points worth mentioning. Ken says we should treat creativity as importantly as we treat literacy. He wonders out loud how we manage to kill a childs ability to take a chance and be wrong as they progress through the years of schooling. Then he says that the education system punishes mistakes. I agree with that point because the government mandated standards are either right or wrong. You don't have room to make mistakes. Students who make mistakes cost schools. I particularly liked his comments about the hierarchy of subjects in education. He says that math and science are at the top, followed by the humanities, with the arts bringing up the rear. Even in the arts some like music and visual arts are more important than something like dance. This jelled nicely with a comment I heard recently from Diane Ravitch. She said every child should be required to learn to play a musical instrument just like we require math or science. Her arguments in favor of this were that it required practice to get good, brought benefit to society, and when you got good at it you could do it with others. I digress, the final point from the talk that I agreed with was his comment that our educational system was designed for the 19th century industrial world. On this I agree whole heartedly. We can not prepare students for 21st century work in a 19th century system.
As part of this session, I have also had the opportunity to explore the TED videos more closely. So far I am pretty impressed. I plan to spend more time exploring some of these short informative videos.
For this course, I was asked to take a look at Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity. Intermixed in this comedy routine were a few points worth mentioning. Ken says we should treat creativity as importantly as we treat literacy. He wonders out loud how we manage to kill a childs ability to take a chance and be wrong as they progress through the years of schooling. Then he says that the education system punishes mistakes. I agree with that point because the government mandated standards are either right or wrong. You don't have room to make mistakes. Students who make mistakes cost schools. I particularly liked his comments about the hierarchy of subjects in education. He says that math and science are at the top, followed by the humanities, with the arts bringing up the rear. Even in the arts some like music and visual arts are more important than something like dance. This jelled nicely with a comment I heard recently from Diane Ravitch. She said every child should be required to learn to play a musical instrument just like we require math or science. Her arguments in favor of this were that it required practice to get good, brought benefit to society, and when you got good at it you could do it with others. I digress, the final point from the talk that I agreed with was his comment that our educational system was designed for the 19th century industrial world. On this I agree whole heartedly. We can not prepare students for 21st century work in a 19th century system.
As part of this session, I have also had the opportunity to explore the TED videos more closely. So far I am pretty impressed. I plan to spend more time exploring some of these short informative videos.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Session 3 - Assessment
The skill of "bubble guessing" as Diane Ravitch recently called it during a lecture at my alma mater, is not very in demand in the working world. Yet that is what our schools have as their central focus because of the current requirements from our government. In this session of my Capstone course I am being tasked with looking at assessment.
For those of you who are uneducated about the ways of education, their are two basic kinds of assessment. The first is the one that most people think of when they think of assessment and it is called summative assessment. These are things like end of unit tests, the SAT, final exams, and even quizzes. The second kind of assessment is called formative. Formative assessments are not supposed to count in the gradebook. They are assessments made as students work towards mastery of information and skills.
According to Catherine Garrison & Michael Ehringhaus in the article, "Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom," “Summative assessments happen too far down the learning path to provide information at the classroom level and to make instructional adjustments and interventions during the learning process.” Now I disagree with the first part of their statement about summative assessments not providing information at the classroom level. I think they do provide valuable feedback on a teachers instruction. I do agree with their point that summative assessments happen too late for the teacher to do anything about it. At this point most teachers are moving on. If things are really bad they might reteach certain concepts. If only they had used better formative assessments they might have recognized their errors earlier and prevented the reteaching in the first place.
Our same authors argue that formative assessment should not count in the gradebook because when the early formative assessments, which happen when students are still grasping concepts, are averaged with the higher scores that come towards the end of an instructional time period the resulting average does not adequately reflect the students learning. Particularly if that student demonstrates strong mastery of a subject by scoring well on the final formative assessment.
So what makes good formative assessment? According to our authors it is descriptive assessment aka giving students lots of feedback. The authors suggest goal setting, observations, questioning strategies, self and peer assessment, and student record keeping as some ways to promote formative assessment. My issue with descriptive/formative assessment is that it can be very time consuming in an environment that is seriously pressed for time.
I like both kinds of assessment and when done correctly they can paint an excellent picture of a students actual academic achievement.
For those of you who are uneducated about the ways of education, their are two basic kinds of assessment. The first is the one that most people think of when they think of assessment and it is called summative assessment. These are things like end of unit tests, the SAT, final exams, and even quizzes. The second kind of assessment is called formative. Formative assessments are not supposed to count in the gradebook. They are assessments made as students work towards mastery of information and skills.
According to Catherine Garrison & Michael Ehringhaus in the article, "Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom," “Summative assessments happen too far down the learning path to provide information at the classroom level and to make instructional adjustments and interventions during the learning process.” Now I disagree with the first part of their statement about summative assessments not providing information at the classroom level. I think they do provide valuable feedback on a teachers instruction. I do agree with their point that summative assessments happen too late for the teacher to do anything about it. At this point most teachers are moving on. If things are really bad they might reteach certain concepts. If only they had used better formative assessments they might have recognized their errors earlier and prevented the reteaching in the first place.
Our same authors argue that formative assessment should not count in the gradebook because when the early formative assessments, which happen when students are still grasping concepts, are averaged with the higher scores that come towards the end of an instructional time period the resulting average does not adequately reflect the students learning. Particularly if that student demonstrates strong mastery of a subject by scoring well on the final formative assessment.
So what makes good formative assessment? According to our authors it is descriptive assessment aka giving students lots of feedback. The authors suggest goal setting, observations, questioning strategies, self and peer assessment, and student record keeping as some ways to promote formative assessment. My issue with descriptive/formative assessment is that it can be very time consuming in an environment that is seriously pressed for time.
I like both kinds of assessment and when done correctly they can paint an excellent picture of a students actual academic achievement.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Thoughts on Session 2 of my Capstone Class
Project Based Learning is a great instructional idea. You start a class with a big idea or question which gets students thinking about their own questions. You provide opportunities for students to research their questions and then get the students to take what they learned and create a product for public consumption. My issue with this kind of project is that the school does not have nearly enough technology based resources to pull this off with every teacher.
The struggle I am having right now with this program is that I don't have a good understanding of how to teach at the elementary level yet. I don't know what these students can do. It makes it really hard for me to plan a lesson, not knowing what they are capable of learning. My formal training is at the secondary level and this is my first year at the elementary level.
I like the curb cut analogy being applied to technology instruction in the classroom. When curb cuts were introduced for individuals with handicaps it also benefited other people. In education, accomodations designed to help students with learning disabilities also can benefit the other students in the class. I checked out the National Center for Universal Design and Learning and watched their introduction video. The ideas sound good, but once again I didnt come across any practical applications for the classroom outside of closed captions on videos.
As I dive deeper into UDL I am recognizing value, but at the same time recognizing some of the immense hurdles to creating lessons of this nature. In parituclar the resource of time. To truly design a good UDL lesson you need to do things in triplicate in various forms with various components. The examples mentioned at http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter4_4.cfm are just too time consuming for a regular teacher to design, day in and day out. Over time, say the course of a few years, I think a teacher could get to this point in their lesson planning. I like the idea of selecting tools that have built in flexibility. The article also argues that digital tools, just by being digital, have an inherent flexibility that other tools do not.
Another component of this lesson is Gardner's multiple intelligences. I am curious to know what the latest research is on this subject because I was under the impression that recent research has debunked some of Mr. Gardner's ideas on multiple intelligences. Multiple intelligences obviously ties in neatly with UDL as these two both get at the idea that lessons should be designed to engage a wide variety of student interests.
The struggle I am having right now with this program is that I don't have a good understanding of how to teach at the elementary level yet. I don't know what these students can do. It makes it really hard for me to plan a lesson, not knowing what they are capable of learning. My formal training is at the secondary level and this is my first year at the elementary level.
I like the curb cut analogy being applied to technology instruction in the classroom. When curb cuts were introduced for individuals with handicaps it also benefited other people. In education, accomodations designed to help students with learning disabilities also can benefit the other students in the class. I checked out the National Center for Universal Design and Learning and watched their introduction video. The ideas sound good, but once again I didnt come across any practical applications for the classroom outside of closed captions on videos.
As I dive deeper into UDL I am recognizing value, but at the same time recognizing some of the immense hurdles to creating lessons of this nature. In parituclar the resource of time. To truly design a good UDL lesson you need to do things in triplicate in various forms with various components. The examples mentioned at http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter4_4.cfm are just too time consuming for a regular teacher to design, day in and day out. Over time, say the course of a few years, I think a teacher could get to this point in their lesson planning. I like the idea of selecting tools that have built in flexibility. The article also argues that digital tools, just by being digital, have an inherent flexibility that other tools do not.
Another component of this lesson is Gardner's multiple intelligences. I am curious to know what the latest research is on this subject because I was under the impression that recent research has debunked some of Mr. Gardner's ideas on multiple intelligences. Multiple intelligences obviously ties in neatly with UDL as these two both get at the idea that lessons should be designed to engage a wide variety of student interests.
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